Archives for January 2013

Last night I came home from work and that Arabella announced the boyfriend (the one I can’t tell you about) was coming for dinner. ‘Is that so’, I said. ‘Yes. And can you be nice because he’s very nervous’. ‘He should be’. ‘Mum, stop it; you should be pleased I want to bring him over’. […]

A few weeks ago Carl and I went to dinner in Dee Why, a beachside suburb on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. I first found out about Dee Why beach when I was about 14 and sitting in art class opposite a boy whose father was a policeman in Dee Why. Mark used to tell us stories […]

Archie is no longer a teenager. It’s so hard to believe because it seemed to me that he would be in that sphere for decades but the reality is, time stands still for no one, not even my Archie and this January he has been tipped over into ‘Young Adult’ status. Twenty years ago, (and […]

Everything’s fine. There’s no need to worry about Miss Arabella. Recovering swiftly from her setback it was, ‘Don’t worry, mum; I’d gone off that course anyway. I’m going to do Law instead and be a barrister’. ‘But you didn’t get enough marks for Law’. ‘Yeah, but I’ll start with Arts and if I get a […]

There’s been a surprising outcome to Miss Arabella’s HSC results and it’s causing a bit of tension. And huge disappointment. And grief and anger and tears and exasperation and bewilderment and sleepless nights. But she’s not taking this setback too badly because so far the words, ‘It’s all your fault, mum’, have not been uttered. […]

When I was on P&O’s Pacific Dawn the cruise went from Brisbane to Far North Queensland stopping at three tender ports along the way. After the ship pulled away from the third port it headed east and traveled out beyond the Great Barrier Reef. One morning the ship stopped out in the middle of nowhere. […]

When I was in high school I had a friend who lived across the back fence and at their house, every Thursday night was ‘Chockie Night’. Chockie Night was where my friend’s father would buy chocolates on his way home from work in the city, then catch the train, walk home from the station then […]

Many moons ago I volunteered at a church that would put on end-of-year productions and my job as a volunteer was to write these for them. I would work on the productions with a very talented friend of mine who is a music director and he would give me the concept and I would go […]

In a previous post I mentioned to you that while we were on a family holiday in Noosa, Maureen and Claire, two amazing bloggers who have become my friends, came over to our apartment for dinner, (except that Claire could only stay for a drink as she was double-booked). You would think that seeing there […]

On the last night of our holiday in Noosa we went out to dinner as a family. Choosing a family-friendly restaurant isn’t as easy as you would think as most of the restaurants in Noosa are fine-dining and therefore expensive and even if you’re prepared to pay the high prices they are not always as […]